Assessments

Assessment is at the heart of the MFL department’s planning and regular

formative assessments and half-termly summative assessments will help you
learn new vocab and grammar step by step and enable you to reach your targets.

You will have weekly vocab tests to help you learn new words step by step and
you will have grammar tests every other week, revising new grammar learnt in
class. You must achieve 70%in every test or you will have to retake it later that
week.

Here is a table of the half term assessments you will be doing:

Assesment Date Listening Reading Writing Speaking assesment

title assessment assessment assesment
Who am I? Wk Presentation about
11/10 yourself and p1 of
speaking booklet.
( 2-3 mins)
What makes Wk Write an Description of a photo
me different 29/11 email to a of your family and p2 of
from my pen friend speaking booklet.
friend? about ( 3-4 mins)
yourself
How does the Wk Write an Presentation about your
Spanish 7/2 article for a school and p5 of the
school day local oral booklet.
differ from newspaper
the English about your
one? school
Which is the Wk Your house is Description of a photo
best room in 28/3 up for sale. of your house and p3 of
the house and Write an speaking booklet.
why? advert for an
estate agent
about your
house.
What is the Wk Create a Presentation about the
ideal town 16/5 leaflet about town where you live and
like? the town p4 of the oral booklet.
where you
live.
Why do Wk Write an Presentation about
different 4/7 interview sport and free time
countries between an
have Journalist
different and a
sports? Spanish
Sportsman.

Strategies to help learn new vocab:

 Practise, practise, practise. Learning a word won't help very much if

you promptly forget it. Research shows that it takes from 10 to 20
repetitions to really make a word part of your vocabulary. Make flash
cards with the new words or index cards. Flash cards have a picture
with the French word written underneath it. Index cards can have the
French word on one side and its meaning on the other side.

 Make up as many associations and connections as possible. Say the word aloud
over and over again. Link the word to words you already know. For example, the
word vendeur (shop assistant) has a link to the word vending machine which sells
somebody something like a shop assistant does.

 Use mnemonics ( memory tricks). For example, consider the word EGREGIOUS
(extremely bad). Think EGG REACH US - imagine we've made a mistake so bad
that they are throwing eggs at us and a rotten EGG REACHes US. Such funny
little word pictures will help you remember what words mean, AND they are fun
to make up.

 Get into the habit of looking up words you don't know. Use a French
dictionary in the classroom and at home - keep it open and handy. Use a French
thesaurus to look up other words with the same meaning to improve your level of
Vocab.(you can find French thesaurus’s on the internet).

 Play with words. Go onto the game websites on the VLE and practise new vocab.

 Use record cards. The more times you write a word down the easier it is to
remember it. Buy some record cards from a local newsagent or stationary shop
and write out the key vocab before every test.
 Matching up game. Write out the new French words
onto little bits of paper. Then write their English
meaning on other bits of paper. Spread them out face
down(so you can’t see the words) on the floor in a two
columns- one for the French words and one for the
English words. Then pick up one piece of paper at a time
from the French column and see if you can find it’s
meaning in the English column.

 Fan shape. Write out a new word on the top of a piece of A4 paper. Then fold it
over and write the word again. Keep doing this until you have reached the
bottom of the page. Open the paper up so it looks like a fan and check how many
times you have spelt the word correctly. If you have spelt it wrong lots of times
look carefully at its spelling again in your vocab book then try the whole process
again. Only move onto the next word when you have spelt the word correctly
everytime!